Pros and Cons of Democratic Politics in the Athenian City-State

Causes of the Formation of Athenian Democracy

Why was it that in the ancient civilized countries of the Orient, centralized authoritarian systems were generally formed, while in the Mediterranean Greek world such a democratic model as Athens was produced? People who think about this question often focus first on the special geography of Athens, and try to say that this is the decisive factor in the formation of Athenian democracy. But this is not convincing. Some city-states with similar geographical conditions to Athens and belonging to the same Greek world, such as Corinth and Megara, established oligarchic regimes. It can be seen that there is no direct and necessary connection between geography and the political system of human society. It cannot be denied that the formation and development of the Athenian democratic political system included the influence of geography, but this influence was indirect rather than direct, not to mention decisive. It should be said that the formation and development of democratic politics in Athens was the result of the combined effect of its economic, political, historical and cultural traditions and other complex factors.

First of all, the ancient Athenian state was formed with a fairly high degree of social productivity. This is one of the characteristics of the Athenian state from the very beginning of the ancient civilizations of the same as the East. Homer's heroic epics show that at the stage of disintegration of the primitive society, iron tools and oxen were already used in Greece. The ancient civilizations of the East were formed much earlier than the Athenian state, while the level of development of the productive forces was much lower. In Egypt, in the era of the Old Kingdom, wooden plows and wooden tools were still mainly used for farming. It was only in the Middle Kingdom that bronze tools appeared in Egypt. Iron was also regarded as a precious metal in the New Kingdom because of its scarcity - about 1,000 years after the formation of the unified Egyptian state. Marx had argued that this excessively low level of civilization and vast size was one of the reasons for the need for a centralized, authoritarian government. The more developed social productive forces in the formation of the Athenian state in agriculture, handicrafts, the existence of self-employment-based production activities, on this basis, it excludes the need for centralized authoritarian government intervention.

Secondly, against the background of Athens' geographic environment and more developed social productive forces, the period of the formation of the ancient Athenian state was characterized by its own socio-economic activities.

Located in the Attica Peninsula, ancient Athens was characterized by rolling hills, which were not conducive to the development of food production, but horticulture, animal husbandry, fruit-planting and beekeeping flourished. Attica has silver, clay and other mineral deposits conducive to the development of handicrafts. Three sides around the Attica Peninsula robes the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Attica west coast of several natural harbors so that the Athenians have the development of seafaring trade conditions. The dependence on foreign food and the export of handicraft products and clothing products necessary, so that the residents of Attica continue to expand foreign relations, and overseas to establish close economic. The inhabitants of Attica continued to expand their foreign contacts and establish close economic and cultural ties with the rest of the world. In this way, at the beginning of the formation of the Athenian state, Attica society has a more developed commodity and monetary relations, to a considerable extent to break through the situation of the natural economy. At this time, Athens has become the center of the eastern Mediterranean economy, trade and culture. In Thoreau's time, "movable property, that is, wealth consisting of money, slaves, and merchant ships, was increasing, but by this time it was no longer used solely as a means of acquiring real estate, as it had been in the first period of narrow-mindedness-it had become the gutter itself." [4] In contrast, the countries of ancient Eastern civilization were generally based on a subsistence rural economy. As Marx points out:1 In India there are two situations: on the one hand, the people of India, like all the peoples of the Orient, have left to the government's control the main condition on which their agriculture and commerce depend, namely, large-scale public * * * works, and on the other hand, they are scattered throughout the country, clustered in very small localities by the combination of agriculture and handicrafts in the form of families. As a result of these two conditions, a special social system, known as the village-community system, has arisen in India from very ancient times, which has made each such small unit an independent organization leading a secluded life." [5] "These idyllic-flavored rural communes, however innocuous they may seem at first sight, have always been the firm foundation of Oriental despotism."[6].

Once again, the state of productivity, geography and economic activity that characterized the emergence of the Athenian state led to a more complete destruction of the clan organization, which was bound by blood ties. One of the main reasons for the destruction of the clan organization was the expansion and development of private ownership on the basis of the development of commodity and monetary relations, especially the private ownership of land, which became widespread with the mortgaging, transferring, buying and selling of land. In the time of Thoreau, the private ownership of land and the sale of land were openly recognized by legislation. Before Thoreau, private ownership of land was a common fact. The buying and selling of land for private ownership undermined the communal ownership of land, which was the basis of clan organization. On the other hand, on the basis of a more developed commercial economic activity, the Attican population had a high level of external contacts and intermingling with the Gentiles was very common. This made it difficult for the clan organizations, which were based on blood ties, to perform their normal administrative functions and gradually lost the need for their existence. As a result of the more complete destruction of the clan organization, the inhabitants of Attica were able to establish a free and independent identity in commodity-money relations, and initially to establish relations of equality with each other, which provided the background conditions for the establishment of social relations when they reorganized themselves in the form of a state to establish democratic politics.

What was the situation in the ancient civilizations of the East based on the Asiatic mode of production according to Marx? Marx's conception of Asiatic society had three basic features. First, there was no private ownership of land, and even if one takes a step back, at least, the land was owned by the state. Second, Asean society was based on the village community system, where each village was self-sufficient through close integration of agriculture, and cottage industry. Third, centralized power played a dominant role. This power was: established in the course of history as a result of the kind of environment in which waterworks) and other public ****works had to be organized in order to make agriculture meet the needs of a growing population." [7]

If we focus only on what has been said above, it is not enough to show the mustfen nature of the emergence of democratic politics in the Athenian state. The polity of a state is not simply suited to the circumstances and economic relations of that society. The power relations of the various classes and factions of the ruling class in a country, and the political consciousness of the class or faction which has gained the leadership, also have a direct influence on the system of government of that country.

On the basis of the more developed overseas trade and handicraft production in Athens, a powerful class of industrial and commercial slave-owners arose in Athenian society. This class existed at the very beginning of the formation of the Athenian state and claimed a position of dominance as its wealth grew with each passing day. If the old clan aristocrats rich had used the "six-one" rent, debt slavery system to make the Athenian small farmers, craftsmen continue to bankrupt and put them under their own rule, then, industrial and commercial slavers demanded to ensure that the free small farmers and craftsmen to exist independently, so that they could maintain the source of foreign exports and the domestic consumer market. Thus, the industrial and commercial slave owners and the free small farmers and craftsmen could raise the banner of political alliance on the basis of the convergence of economic interests. As a result, the political reforms under the leadership of the industrial and commercial slave owners represented by Thoreau led to the early abolition of native debt slavery in the Athenian state, stipulated the maximum land occupation limit, and preserved a large number of free people small farmers, craftsmen and free urban poor in the Athenian state. B small farmers' economy and independent artisanal production formed the economic basis of classical society in its heyday." [8] These people were a powerful social force that embraced and supported democratic reforms. And in ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon and other countries, the royal family and aristocrats have a huge scale of farms and handicraft workshops, possession of numerous slaves and various types of dependent peasants, which is the formation of the class basis of the monarchical autocratic rule.

In addition, more importantly, the Athenian commoners, led by the industrial and commercial slave owners, established democratic politics by means of gradual reforms. In the process of reform, there were no obvious traces of civil war, riots, or bloodshed. At the same time, the landed aristocracy, which had been overthrown from the throne of exclusive rule, still had a place in the new democracy. Considering the fact that a considerable number of the industrial and commercial slaveholders had been transformed from the landed aristocracy, and that there was still a considerable convergence of interests between them economically, the possibility existed for a political compromise to be realized between them. The learned Thoreau may have summarized the experience of political reforms in other countries, so much so that he adopted a middle-of-the-road attitude towards the poor and the landed aristocracy in his political reforms, which made compromise a reality. As a result, all classes and factions of the slave-owning ruling class were **** accommodated in a democracy. A democracy is a form of government that takes care of the interests of all classes of slave-owning freedmen who compromise with each other.

In general, when examining the causes of Athenian democracy, we should see the complex synthesis of a series of conditions such as the economic, political, historical, cultural and natural environment of the Athenian society at that time. These conditions were closely interconnected with each other. According to the viewpoint of historical materialism, we can think that the special mode of production of the Athenian society, which was different from that of the civilized countries of the ancient East, was the fundamental cause contributing to the formation of Athenian democratic politics, but we must not simplify this proposition.

The Characteristics and Role of Athenian Democracy

Athenian democracy, unlike the primitive democracies of the budding nations in general. Compared with the ancient Oriental absolutist states, it had many distinctive features.

First of all, Athenian democracy embodied the sovereignty of the majority of Athenian slave-owning freemen. Pericles once proudly declared, "Our system is called a democracy because the power is in the hands of all the citizens, not in the hands of a few." [9] Embodying this Athenian notion of civic sovereignty was the system of the supremacy of the power of the popular assembly. The popular assembly of Athens was an assembly open to all adult Athenian citizens. Here any citizen could speak; all laws were discussed and passed before they were enacted; all important state officials were elected, and all matters of war and peace and other important affairs of state were debated and decided by majority opinion. Through this system, the ordinary citizens of Athens did have many opportunities to influence and even decide on governmental decisions. The elected officials were also better able to reflect and carry out public opinion.

Secondly, closely connected with the sovereignty of the citizen is the freedom and equality of the individual citizen. Indeed, this was the starting point of Athenian democracy. "The plebeian polity was thought to be characterized by two particular notions: one of 'sovereignty belonging to the majority' and the other of 'individual liberty'". "The plebeians assumed first that justice (fairness) lay in 'equality' and then that equality was the supreme public opinion." [10] The Athenian conception of freedom and equality can be traced back to the traditions of the clan society and was reinforced by the particular mode of production after Athens entered a class society.

Once again, the Athenian official system was an important embodiment of the principle of 具民主. "One of the essentials of liberty (as embodied in political life) is that everyone is by turns ruler and ruled." [11] All the public * * * offices of the state (except the office of the ten generals) were open to citizens of all ranks, with only a few rare and necessary limitations of conditions to ensure that the incumbents could perform their duties properly and successfully. For example, it was provided that jurors in the jury courts must be citizens over 30 years of age who were not indebted to the public ****. Elections for officials are usually held by lot, so the opportunities for ordinary citizens to hold public office are quite numerous.

Important officials were elected by a show of hands in popular assemblies, and, in principle, "it was not members of a particular class that were considered, but rather that they had real talent." [12]

Repeatedly, it is striking that in the Athenian state there was a fairly tight system of ensuring that citizens exercised effective supervision over state officials. In Athens, all officials were scrutinized for their qualifications before taking office. Generally the authority to carry out this examination was the jury court. However, for members of the council, consuls and other important officials who were to take office in the following year, their qualifications were first examined by the 500-member council, and then by the jury court, with the final decision resting with the jury court. Since the jury court of Athens was actually in the hands of the people, the judicial consuls of Athens also had the responsibility of supervising the state officials, and they could lodge public complaints to the popular assembly against the illegal behavior of the state officials, including the president of the council. In order to prevent state officials from being corrupt and taking advantage of their positions for personal gain, Athens had ten accountants, "to whom all outgoing officials were required to report on their accounts." [13] These accountants would submit the results of their verification to the jury court, which would punish the offending officials with fines or other penalties once they were found guilty of embezzlement or misappropriation of public funds. The office of the ten generals, which occupied a comparatively special position in all the Athenian state organs, though eligible for re-election, was also subject to a vote of confidence by ten citizens' assemblies in each year. If this vote was against any one of these officials, he was to be tried in a jury court and, if guilty, he was to be decided1 as a penalty or a fine" [14]. In addition, the aforementioned "shell banishment" was one of the Athenians' effective means of monitoring officials.

As mentioned earlier, the Athenian 500-member council was responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the state, which was an extremely important organ of the Athenian state. In order to prevent the council's arbitrariness, the Athenians took the method of separation of powers, deprived the council of the original supreme power to impose the death penalty, imprisonment and fines, and established the jury court of the highest judicial trial and supervision, and even make the jury court has the power to protect the constitution. Aristotle recounts, "The people made themselves masters of everything, and dealt with everything by command, by jury courts in which the people were in power, and even the cases tried by the councils fell into the hands of the people." [15] Within the deliberative council, measures were also taken to prevent the centralization of power. The deliberative council practiced a system of rotating presidencies among the 50-member corps of the ten divisions (the three divisions), each presidency serving for about 1/10th of a year. the presidency had a general chairman chosen by lot each day, who was responsible for the custody of the national treasury, the archives, and the locks, keys, and state seals of the temples; and who served as chairman of the popular assemblies, and the meeting of the 500 people when they were in session. The President-General, however, shall hold office for one day and one night only, and shall not be permitted to extend it, nor shall he be permitted to hold the office again. These measures are conducive to avoiding the formation of de facto concentration of power and even authoritarian dictatorship as a result of prolonged tenure of office.

In addition, in the political life of Athens, and democracy is complemented by the rule of law in the Athenian state. Pericles declared, "In the settlement of private disputes everyone is equal in law." [16] The law was applicable to all; no one could be outside the law and enjoy privileges.

While the Athenians greatly valued the individual freedom of their citizens, this freedom never descended into lawlessness and "every man for himself". "In our private lives we are free and forgiving; but in public affairs we obey the law. This is because such laws convince our hearts." Aristotle believed that "plebeian polities are less prone to infighting and are safer than oligarchies." [17] This is because, in a democratic political state like Athens, certain legal procedures were basically followed in resolving the conflicts and struggles of the various factions of the ruling class, so that struggles for power by means of violence and bloodshed were rare.

The Athenians attached great importance to the stability and authority of the law, and although changes in the law were permitted, they were strictly limited. In Athens, motions submitted for discussion in the popular assembly had to be scrutinized by the council beforehand. Although individual citizens could propose to amend or repeal previous laws or introduce new bills in the popular assemblies, if such proposals were not passed, they would be prosecuted for unlawful acts, and the proposers would be subject to fines and even the risk of losing their lives.

The Athenians valued not only written law, but also customary law. "We obeyed the laws themselves, especially those that protected the oppressed, those that were not written, but whose violation was considered a recognized disgrace." [18]

Democracy in Athens played an important role in the development of the Athenian state.

The establishment of Athenian democracy had greatly contributed to the development of the Athenian economy. The development of handicrafts, commerce, navigation and cultivation in Athens, in turn, led to the rapid expansion of Athens' foreign trade. The Athenian port of Pirrius became the busiest port in the eastern Mediterranean. "Such is the greatness of our city-state, that it brings to us in full measure all good things from all parts of the world, so that we enjoy foreign things just as if they were our native produce." [19]

The free and liberal academic conditions and the atmosphere that allowed for the free and full development of individual talents that developed under Athenian democracy led to an unprecedented flourishing of scientific culture in Athens. The major schools of contemporary Western philosophy as well as the disciplines of ethics, aesthetics, logic, political science, and jurisprudence can trace their roots in the Greek culture centered in Athens. In addition, the Athenians made outstanding contributions to mathematics, medicine, and a number of other sciences. Thus, Peliklis proudly did in one of his speeches when he said, (Our city is the school of all Greece.)" [20]

Most striking of all was the patriotic fervor displayed by the citizens of Athens under this system. At the Battle of Marathon, the Athenian soldiers were able to defeat a Persian army six times their size in one fell swoop, which would have been unthinkable but for the tremendous courage and talent inspired to defend their system. It was the democratic system and way of life of the Athenian city-state that inspired the Athenians to fight and die with generosity, "for they shuddered at the mere thought of losing the city-state." [21]

Conclusion

After we have analyzed and commented on Athenian democracy as above, we must also remember that Athenian democracy was based on slavery, and was essentially a tool for the slave-owning class, led by Athenian industrial and commercial slave-owners, to exercise dictatorship over the slaves, the non-citizen masses, and that, in the final analysis, it was to serve the economic interests of the slave-owning class as a whole. In the final analysis, it served the economic interests of the slave-owning class as a whole, and was the democracy of the slave-owning freeman class. This limited class democracy determines that it has enormous limitations and narrowness.

In the heyday of Athens, the total number of free citizens, including women and children, was about 90,000, while the number of male and female slaves was 365,000. Slaves, who constituted the majority of the population of Athens, were deprived of their freedom and citizenship, and therefore could not participate in political activities. As in other Greek countries, slave owners could abuse and punish their slaves at will. In workshops, mines, and farms, slaves were forced to perform heavy work with simple tools. In fact, it was precisely on the basis of the hard labor of the slaves that the slave-owning freedmen had the possibility of political activity; it was precisely on the premise of the valves: the oppression and dictatorship of the slaves in addition to the slaves in the political life that the slave-owning freedmen had democracy. So the democracy of Athens was the privileged democracy of the slave-owning free citizens.

This privileged democracy was taken even further than strong. During the period of Pericles, which was claimed to be in its heyday, the scope of Athenian citizenship, instead of being enlarged, was further narrowed, and 5,000 of the inhabitants of Athens were at once disenfranchised, owing to the special decree passed in 151 B.C., which made it possible to become citizens of Athens only to those whose parents were Athenian citizens. And from then on, Athens lost the possibility of replenishing free citizens from other city-states.

The scope of Athenian democracy was nonetheless narrow, and democracy within its free peoples was to some extent futile. In the time of Pericles, the total number of citizens with full rights was about 30,000 to 35,000, while the attendance at citizens' assemblies usually did not exceed 2,000 to 3,000. Peasants and craftsmen, who were ordinary citizens of Athens, were often unable to attend the citizens' assemblies, which were held about once every ten days, in order to earn a living. As a result, their ability to express their will and influence governmental decisions was greatly diminished. What's more, in practice, power in Athens was in the hands of the upper echelons of industrial and commercial slave owners. They monopolized the position of ten generals and manipulated the internal and external policies of the country. Since the position of the ten generals could be re-elected, this left an obvious loophole in Athenian democracy - it was easy to create a centralized power of generals that controlled the government in practice.

Another factor that made the democratic politics of Athens greatly diminished was Athens' foreign hegemonic policies. After the Hippocratic War, Athens utilized the Tyrolean League, which it had established with other Greek city-states, and its leadership position in the League, to exert control over the states in the League; ji ah mouth exploitation. Athens controlled the treasury of the League and sent emissaries to collect tribute from the states in the League. The huge financial expenditure of the Athenian state during the Peloponnesian War depended to a considerable extent on this tribute. At the same time, Athens seized the "armies" of the allied states, introduced military emigration to the allied states, and sent Athenian citizens to move back to the allied city-states to collect their share of the land as heavily armed infantrymen, as Cleanthe said to the Athenians, "Your empire is a tyrannical dominion over the dependents; ...... your right to the frame relies on your own superior power, not on that of your own. own superior power, and not on their favor to you." [22]

At the end of the day, democracy in Athens was a narrow, fragmented democracy, determined by the nature of the exploiting class, and lacking in scope for further development.

An analysis of Athenian democracy should make it clear that, on the one hand, slave-owning and exploiting class democracy implies the dictatorship of slaves and non-citizens; on the other hand, it implies the guarantee of freedom, equality, and participation in the government of the state for the slave-owning citizens, and that, in the first sense, it is no different from the other forms of government adopted by the exploiting class states throughout history. In the second sense, it is quite progressive in comparison with other forms of government adopted by the exploiting class countries in history. For under such forms of government as oligarchy, monarchy, and autocracy, democracy within the ruling class cannot even be spoken of. Athens' democratic political practice shows that by ensuring democracy within the ruling class, the state can not only fulfill its function of dictatorship over the slaves and non-citizens well, but also balance the interests of all classes and groups within the ruling class well, and ensure the political stability and economic prosperity in the longer term.

Socialist democracy is the form of organization in which the proletariat and the mass of working people in socialist countries hold power. Unlike the democracy of all previous exploiting class countries, socialist democracy is the broadest democracy, on the one hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the mass of the working people over a very small number of exploiting class elements and hostile elements; on the other hand, the workers and the working people, who account for the vast majority of the population, enjoy the fullest democracy, freedom and the right to take part in the affairs of the state. Precisely because of this essential difference, precisely because this is democracy for the greatest number of people and dictatorship over the minority, it is undoubtedly of great significance to emphasize the realization of the function of the socialist democratic system of government in safeguarding democracy within the people, to study the form of organization of the political regime which should be adopted for the purpose of realizing this function, and to make it constantly perfect, in order to continuously push forward the construction of socialist democracy and the rule of law and the development of the socialist democratic system. This is undoubtedly of great significance to the continuous promotion of socialist democracy and the construction of the legal system and the development of socialist democracy.